Mami Horie -- Camouflage

 

On Christmas Eve Eve (and that's not a spelling error...just being cute), I wrote about jazz chanteuse Mami Horie's（堀江マミ）take on "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and was reminded that a few decades previously, she had also tackled City Pop.

In fact, my first ever article on Horie was her 1979 debut single "Loving You", a City Pop tune that begins with some smoking jazz balladry before the rhythm jumps into a jaunty metropolitan beat. Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）was the fellow behind the melody there. Well, this time around, there is another famous singer-songwriter who took care of the B-side, "Camouflage", and it's none other than Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）under her pen name of Karuho Kureta（呉田軽穂）with Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）on lyrics.

Whereas "Loving You" feels like a morning brunch-happy City Pop tune, "Camouflage" sounds like something to sip an evening cocktail to in the style of Junko Yagami（八神純子）. The piano takes us rolling downtown with a bit of Latin feeling while the electric guitar and saxophone arrive to transport us up to the hotel rooftop bar. I can even imagine Horie herself in the bar playing this song itself.